Dream Talking
by dragonmactir
Summary: Lassiter has some weird-ass dreams. Juliet gets him to confide in her. Sorry, no longer a one-shot, and no longer no pairing. Another damn Lassiet after all! MUAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Should be self-contained. I had this occurrence myself night before last and couldn't stop laughing about it, and then last night I had the _second_ dream described herein. I like to get my weirdest dreams down in writing, like the one in my profile. A one-shot, honest. No, really.

* * *

 **Dream-Talking**

Third night of the stakeout. Carlton had, as usual, been stubborn throughout the entire operation but it was clear he hadn't gotten much sleep even _before_ this campaign, and he was flagging. It was usually him urging _Juliet_ to grab a half an hour or an hour's sleep. She was quite happy to be the one urging _him_ for a change. It was a testament to how tired he truly was that he settled in and didn't fight it.

Juliet continued to watch the warehouse while Carlton settled back in the driver's seat. In short order, his deep breathing indicated he'd fallen asleep. She couldn't resist taking a little peek at him. Asleep, relaxed, unguarded…he almost looked like a different man. A very _cute_ one.

She giggled a very private giggle and returned her attention to the warehouse.

All was still and silent for a good solid half an hour. Then she was startled when Lassiter suddenly jerked in his seat and shouted, _"Bring that back, bitch, that's my cell phone!"_

Awake now, he broke up laughing with his face in his hand. Juliet laughed herself, not sure what was going on. He raised one finger of his other hand and held it out towards her.

"That _didn't_ happen, O'Hara," he said, still laughing.

"I'm not quite sure what _did_ happen, Carlton, but I'm fairly sure it _did,"_ she said.

"No. It was your overactive imagination."

"You know the dashboard cam caught it, Carlton," she said, in a low, conspiratorial voice.

"Sweet Lady Justice," he said, and cracked up laughing again.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I was having a really weird dream, okay?"

"What about?"

He sighed and rubbed his eyes for a moment. "I was…in school," he said at last. "Looking for the lunchroom, but I couldn't find it, 'cause I kept getting lost among all these big department stores that were all decorated up for Christmas. I had my cell phone in my hand but, for some reason, it was a DVD case, and it was open."

" _What?"_ she exclaimed.

"I told you, it was really weird," he said, defensively.

"I'm listening. Go on, go on," she said.

"Well, I stopped to ask this teacher how to find the lunchroom, but that was when I realized I could _see_ it from where I was, but when I started heading that way, I fell into a big square hole in the floor among all those department stores. My cell phone - the open DVD case - was face-down on the floor in front of me, and as I was trying to hoist myself out of the hole, this teenaged girl in a big, gray sweatshirt ran up and grabbed my cell phone and ran off with it, and… _voila."_

"Carlton, that's hilarious," Juliet said.

"You want to know the _really_ weird part?" he said.

"Tell me," she said.

"I was looking for the lunchroom so I could get a box of chocolate chip muffins. I _hate_ chocolate chip muffins."

It was her turn to crack up laughing, slouching down helplessly in her seat as the waves of laughter consumed her. "Oh, Carlton…"

"Yeah, I know, I know."

The next night they were back in the same place, the stakeout continuing. Carlton looked no better rested than he had the night before. It took some urging, but Juliet finally convinced him to sit back and close his eyes for awhile.

It didn't last long - ten minutes, tops. He jerked awake with a low grunt and she said, "What, Carlton? What?"

He looked at her and started to laugh. "Thank God it was inarticulate this time," he said.

"What were you dreaming about?" she said, grinning.

He blushed red to the tips of his ears. "Hamsters running for President."

" _What?"_ she said, laughing like mad.

"They were standing at little Presidential podiums and had big campaign banners up behind them and everything. Guess you can see what I think about the current crop of Presidential candidates."

"Carlton, you have the craziest dreams," Juliet said.

"Usually I don't dream at all - at least not that I can ever remember. I don't know what's going on."

Juliet sat back and giggled madly into her hand. Lassiter sat hunched in the driver's seat, silent and still for a moment, and then said, in a quiet, high-pitched voice _, "We hold these truths to be self-evident,"_ and she broke out in gales of laughter.

"Was there one with a bad toupee?" she asked, when she was capable of speech.

"I don't remember, but I think there was one hiding emails, as well as a _whole bunch_ that were doing really badly in the polls but wouldn't drop out."

"Carlton. Please. Stop," she begged.

He sat forward. "There's our guy, O'Hara. Quick, get the pictures. We can finally end this stupid stakeout and get some real sleep."

She raised the camera to her eye. "You need it, partner. Like, seriously."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** None.

 **A/N:** Well, I lied. I thought it would be a one-shot, but last night I had another crazy-ass dream and I had to put it down.

 **Yet Another Crazy-Ass Dream**

Lassiter stirred sugar and creamer into his coffee the next morning at the coffee bar as O'Hara made up her own cup.

"Sleep well last night?" she asked. He looked sheepish.

"I had another weird-ass dream," he said.

"Oh no. What was it _this_ time?"

He sighed. "I dreamt I became convinced that my middle name was 'Diamond.' I have no idea why: it only just now occurred to me that there's an actor named Lou _Diamond_ Phillips. I don't know of anybody else who goes by that name, first or middle. _Neil_ Diamond is the only other Diamond I know, period."

She chuckled. "Well, that's weird, but not nearly as bad as those _other_ two dreams you had," she said.

"Oh, it gets worse," he said. "I went to my mother and asked her why I thought my middle name was Diamond. My middle name is _Jebediah,_ and even in the _dream_ I knew that, so I wanted her to tell me why I thought my middle name should be Diamond instead. She couldn't. But then she said, 'The baby was named Diamond.' And I said, 'What baby?' and she said, 'Your sister's baby.' Again I said, 'What baby?' and she said, 'The one born November 10th, 1981.' Now, my niece _Zoe_ was born November 10th, but that was in 2005. No one else I know was born November 10th, and one of my two sisters wasn't born until 198 _2_. The other one was _eight years old_ in 1981. So I tried to get Ma to explain how this baby was possible, but she wouldn't. She started walking away from me _super-fast,_ and I followed her, down long twisting, turning halls, and into this restaurant all done up in yellow and white and looking like the Tropicana nightclub from the old _I Love Lucy_ show. And that was when I realized that my mom was Phylicia Rashad, and always had been. And then, thankfully, I woke up."

Juliet collapsed against his chest, laughing helplessly. "Good God, Carlton. Maybe you need to talk to somebody," she said.

"I thought that was what I was doing," he said, whining a little.

"Somebody professional," Juliet said.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** None.

 **A/N:** Holy shit. 'Nuff said.

 **Maybe It's the Medication**

They were on their way to a call across town the next day. Juliet turned slightly sideways in the passenger seat and looked at Lassiter.

"So…have any crazy dreams last night?" she asked, grinning.

He sighed heavily. "What, you don't mean to tell me that you _did?"_ Juliet said.

"I did. It seems to be becoming a habit."

"What was it this time? Parakeets bombing Syria?"

"No. But thank you; that will probably be tonight's dream. No, last night I dreamt I was sick, so I was laying around watching TV, and the show I was watching was a TV episode of some show that was showing _me_ squaring off against that asshole Drimmer in my house the night he tried to kill me and Spencer. And I dreamed that, instead of being taken unawares, the show showed me walking in and shooting him right away with a gun I had on me, but it didn't stop him, so for some reason TV me had to reach for the gun in the pistachios anyway, but instead of a Walther I pulled up a freakin' _rifle_ and blew his ass away.

"Then I dreamed I got up to turn the TV off, but it wouldn't turn off, and just went snowy. I kept trying to turn it off and my dad walked up behind me - two of him. One was dressed in a dark blue pocket t-shirt like he used to wear and the other was dressed in one of his dark blue short sleeved uniform shirts from his diesel mechanic shop. My dad has been dead for awhile now, and he was what they called 'cataclysmically disabled' for a _long time_ before he died, but he was just fine in my dream.

"And then, I dreamt I woke up. I was at school, dressed in a Catholic school boy uniform, and it was a boarding school. I was still sick. I was laying facedown with my head hanging off the end of a big, huge bed and my friends were laying out these _wild_ -colored and patterned socks on the floor below and trying to get all my other friends to wear them. I said, 'I'll wear a pair,' and they handed me the absolute _ugliest_ pair there was: these pale purple argyle monstrosities, so I got up and walked away to go find my dorm, which I thought was room number two.

"I get to room number two and absolutely _none_ of the separated living areas inside looks like it would belong to me. Then some other kids walk in and they all look at me funny 'cause I don't belong there, so I leave in a hurry. I figure I must've misread which room was marked 'number two' so I enter the next room over, and it looks more like I think I remember, being much larger with separate rooms inside, but I still can't remember what room is mine, and I meet this _super_ -tall kid who doesn't recognize me either, but _doesn't_ think that doesn't mean I don't live there, and we go around looking for my place, and we end up in the lunchroom, where I say that I've been sick and start to get all depressed and say, 'Maybe I don't even go to this school.' And then I woke up for real."

"That _might_ be your weirdest dream yet," Juliet said. "You know, I'm starting to think, just maybe, this is all…self-fulfilling prophecy?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean you've started to _expect_ to have these weird-ass dreams, so you do, don't you think?"

"Well, that would be a much more comfortable explanation than the one _I_ came up with," he said.

"Which was?" Juliet asked.

"That I've gone shit-balls crazy."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** None.

 **A/N:** Juliet's "You tell a damn good story" comes from the fact that no one would possibly suspect that Lassiter would ever write stories to begin with. As far as I'm concerned, "Captain Hook: Condemnation and Redemption" _is_ a really very damn good story - for something written by a not-very-bright nineteen year old. I think I could definitely do better now.

* * *

 **OK, This One's Not That Weird, But Still…**

"All right, what did you dream of last night?" Juliet said, walking into the conference room and sitting down next to Lassiter with a cup of coffee and a file of evidence.

"It wasn't quite as bad as the last ones, and I know where it came from," Lassiter said, looking up from the evidence he was perusing.

"Where did it come from?" Juliet asked.

"A story I wrote way, way back when I was in college. I had forgotten all about it, but something reminded me of it last night, so I dug it out and read it. It was the 'true story' of Captain Hook and Peter Pan."

"…So you dreamed about Peter Pan?" Juliet asked, cautiously.

"Captain Hook, actually, who the story was more fully about. You'll never understand the dream at all, not knowing the story."

"Well…tell me what it was about," she said.

"Well, it's kinda hard to explain," he said. "In it I had it that Hook was always…different. He was born a boy named James Cook, and his mother was quite fashionable, and all through her pregnancy she disguised her condition by wearing tight corsets. James got squeezed so hard that he was stillborn, with his soul on the outside as his shadow, but he was just too stubborn to lay still and quiet like a dead child should. Then his mother ignored him and his father was abusive, and when he was fifteen a sympathetic soul named Horace Eustace Smith saw his circumstances and got him out of them by 'crimping' him - hitting him on the head and spiriting him away to his ship in the harbor to work all unwillingly as a hand. H.E. Smith was, of course, better known to his compatriots as 'Smee.'

"When he came to, James didn't see any particular reason to bemoan his fate, which seemed no worse to him than the circumstances he came from, so he set to work with a will and quickly learned how to be a decent sailor. It was, of course, a pirate ship, but it never turned much of a profit, so the Captain came up with a new scheme to make money: hauling 'Black Gold' - slaves, taken from Africa to the illegal plantations of Cuba. Very few people on the ship particularly liked this new line of work, but everyone was too scared of the Captain and particularly the First Mate - Bill Buckland - to say anything about it.

"James in particular wanted to do something about it, but couldn't come up with a decent plan. One day, the Captain called him into his cabin and told him he was making him a full mate aboard the ship, with a full share of the profits. Sounded good to James, but he didn't trust it. Then the Captain ordered Bill Buckland to go down to the cargo hold and pick out a couple of pretty young slave girls for himself and James, and James got pissed off. When he did, his eyes turned red, his heart started to beat, he grabbed his dagger, and he stuck it right in the Captain's throat.

"Bill Buckland came back, saw what happened, and immediately set to trying to kill James. He drew his flintlock and tried to shoot him in the heart, but James' one shipboard friend, a young man named 'Jolly' Roger Rees, jumped in front of the bullet and died instead. Buckland drew his cutlass and stabbed James in the heart, but James didn't die - didn't even bleed. Buckland stabbed him again, in the stomach, but again, nothing happened.

"The pirates chose sides, some of them siding with James despite how scared they were of his bloodlessness and apparent immortality, and most of them siding with Buckland. They fought, and James and his men were defeated and taken below and put in chains with the slaves. That's where James met and forged a kind of friendship with a slave named Akachi, of the Igbo tribe. He didn't speak English, but they had nothing but time, and started to sort-of understand each other. Akachi called James 'Ekwensu,' which was Igbo for Evil, of which he thought James was the personification of - not because he actually knew that he was, but because he'd given up on the gods of good coming to his rescue and had switched his faith to the forces of evil if they would get him out of this mess he was in.

"James, of course, had every intention of getting himself out of this mess, and the slaves as well, if he could, and when they got to Cuba he got his chance. He and the surviving men who'd been loyal to him were chained together and left outside a police station with a note pinned to James' shirt saying they were pirates and should be hung. James managed to steal the First Mate's keys and he used them to unlock Smee's shackles, and then Smee released the rest of them. They went through the town, stealing as many weapons as they could find, and tracked down the stockyards where the slaves were kept. They released Akachi and the rest of the slaves, armed the ones that could fight, and led them back to the harbor, where they looked for a ship to steal. James found a Dutch fleut, just like the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ , that struck him as the perfect ship, and he and his men climbed aboard and took the overly-complacent crew in a heartbeat.

"They got everyone else aboard, resupplied, and set out to put Cuba behind them before they could be tracked down. The ship's original name turned out to be the _King James_ , which the crew took as fate, and they renamed it the _Jolly Roger_. They set out to return the slaves to Africa and then started pirating. The _Jolly Roger_ was the fastest, most responsive ship on the seas, because she responded to her Captain's mood. Even when there was no wind, she'd still sail.

"James started looking for an unoccupied Pirate Isle to claim for himself. There weren't many left. Beneath the second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning, he found what they called the Never-Land, which he refused to believe was faerie-cursed. When he got there, that external soul of his wanted to stay. He himself wanted very badly to leave. He commanded that the ship be turned and put the place behind them, but when they did, he felt that he was torn in two: his shadow stayed behind."

"His shadow became Peter Pan," Juliet said, softly, seemingly utterly entranced. Lassiter nodded.

"Little by little, growing a little bit stronger and more corporeal every day. Because of the curse of forgetfulness on the island, Pan forgot he'd ever been a part of Hook, and so did Hook when he was there, as he kept coming back to hunt Pan down. At first he just wanted his shadow back, but as time went on and he forgot what Pan really was, he just wanted to kill him. For thirty years Hook chased after Pan, losing his hand in a sword fight and to the giant Crocodile that lived on the island, which started following him, eager for more. He stopped going by Cook and started going by Hook. And he stopped being the egalitarian pirate Captain his crew admired and started being the tyrant they feared. And then Pan fed him to the Crocodile, by stripping him of all the happy thoughts of victory that kept him airborne during their battle, and convincing him that he was 'Old, Alone, and Done For.' And that was the end of the first part."

"You tell a pretty damn good story," she said, impressed. "I can't wait to hear the second part. I take it then that Hook somehow survived being eaten by the Crocodile?"

"Yep. The Crocodile swallowed him whole. It didn't chomp him, or chew him, or otherwise stick its teeth into him at all. It just swallowed him. He cut his way out of its stomach with his hook and washed up on shore, where Smee and the few other surviving members of his crew - Akachi, Bill Dukes, Mister White: Pirates were superstitious about swimming - were waiting. The faeries had made the _Jolly Roger_ fly off to England, taking the Darling children and the Lost Boys home, and they didn't know what they were going to do, but the _Jolly Roger_ came flying back on its own, returning to its master. They climbed aboard and sailed away from the Never-Land, and as they left Hook saw Peter Pan return, which made him want to go back, but after having been defeated that way, he just couldn't.

"They went sailing to Nassau, where Hook intended to recruit a new crew, but on the way they came upon the _Grey Lady_ , which Hook remembered was the ship that 'Commodore' Bill Buckland commanded in his fleet of slave ships. He didn't remember why he had a grudge against Buckland, but he still did, so he ordered his few men to break out Long Tom, the huge 'spinner' cannon he'd had made for the ship and fire upon the _Grey Lady_. They boarded her, and took the crew by sheer dumb luck, there being so few of them, and the Captain came stumbling out onto the decks from below, where he'd apparently been asleep. Hook asked him why he was sleeping down below instead of in his cabin. The Captain didn't want to say, so Hook cracked the door open, and a young woman spilled out - Buckland's intended, the daughter of his slave merchant partner, a girl named Aster. She tried to struggle, Hook subdued her, so she tried to reach a compromise with him instead.

"'I'll do what you want me to, and in exchange, you won't hurt me or give me to the pleasure of your crew,' she said. Hook made a counter offer. 'I'll ask nothing of you, won't hurt you, won't give you to my crew, and in exchange I ask only that you do for me what you were prepared to do for Buckland. Marry me.'

"She didn't particularly want to, but she recognized it was better than the alternatives, perhaps including the alternative of continuing on her way and marrying Buckland, who was now 78 years old, so she agreed, and Hook had the captive Captain of the _Grey Lady_ perform the ceremony."

"Why would he do that?" Juliet asked. "Why would he want to marry Aster? He doesn't know her, hasn't particularly seemed to have any softer emotions. What does he gain?"

"It's a way to make Buckland grind his dentures," Lassiter said. "And you're right, he doesn't have the softer emotions - all of those went to Pan - but over time he figures out that Aster is every bit as smart as he, and a good conversationalist, good company, a good friend, and he starts to care for her. She also gets bored on the ship, so he starts to teach her how to be a pirate. For her part, she starts to fall in love with him, but when she makes a move to show him that, he puts her down. 'I can't feel that way,' he tells her. 'I'm sorry: you rather make me wish I could.'"

Juliet sniffled back a tear.

"He begins to put distance between them," Lassiter continued. "This continues until they come upon an iron-clad ship that fires upon them and the crew boards them. It's Buckland, come for Aster. He grabs her and tells his crew to make for their ship, but Hook comes flying at him with his cutlass out and engages with him. They fight, and some shrewd words from Buckland cause him to gain the upper hand. He knocks Hook to the ground and raises his sword to cut his head off, but Aster throws herself over him to protect him, just like Wendy did for Peter Pan.

"'Just let it be finished, Aster,' Hook says. 'Everything he said is true.' 'This is true, James,' she says, and kisses him. It's the Hidden Kiss. For the first time ever that he's not enraged, Hook's heart starts to beat. He gets up and starts fighting again. Buckland doesn't stand a chance.

"When it's over, Hook hold Aster close. He says, 'You know this can't last.' 'What can't last?' 'This,' he says, and puts her hand over his heart, where the beat is already slowing down. 'Soon enough I'll be cold and dead again.' 'Then I'll just have to kiss you again. As often as it takes.' 'No. That might work once or twice, but sooner or later I'll become accustomed to it and it won't work anymore.' 'Then I'll just have to love you enough for both of us,' she says. But Hook says, 'I can't be the man you need,' and walks away.

"Akachi talks to Aster. He tells her that Hook can't be the man she needs, can't love her as he wants to, until he has his soul back - and _inside_ him, where it never has been before. He says he'll talk to him for her. He goes into the Captain's cabin and tells James they need to return to the Never-Land, tells him he needs to talk to Peter Pan, and convince him to join with him as one, so they can both be complete at last. Hook realizes he's right, so they return to the island and Hook has everyone throw down their weapons and calls out to Pan for a truce.

"He reminds Peter of what it was like to have a Wendy, because Pan's forgotten. He says, 'I've found myself a Wendy, Peter. Without you, I can never be the man she needs.' Pan comes a little closer. He doesn't want to be a man, of course, but the idea of having another Wendy is tempting. 'Will it hurt?' he asks, 'Because when I left, it hurt.'

"'I don't think so,' Hook says. 'That was destruction. This will be more like…creation.' He holds out his hand. Still not quite trusting, Peter reaches out to take it. When he does, they merge, and Hook becomes honestly and truly alive, for the first time in forever."

Juliet giggled. "Finally, a happy ending for Hook! I always liked him better than Peter Pan. Peter was always kind of…annoying, really. In his insistence that he would _never_ grow up. Hook was a bastard but he at least had some depth of character."

"Now you know why I don't like Spencer very much," Lassiter said, gravely, and Juliet laughed.

"Okay now, I know the story, the basics at least: now what was the dream? Just that?" she asked.

"No. Actually, I told you way more than you really needed to know, but you listened so well I couldn't help myself. The dream was…kind of a sequel, really. Hook boards a ship that turns out to be captained by his mother. He tries to make some amends with her, but she tears into him, telling him that he was always worthless, that she wishes he was never born, that the happiest she's ever been in her life was the day he disappeared. Hook just stands there, drinking this all in, and his crew decide to get a little justice on their own, and start killing off _her_ crew without orders to do so. The dream got pretty gory."

"What about his mother?" Juliet asked.

"Hook draws her aside and tries to convince her that there's something inside her that cares a _little_ bit for him, but she refuses to admit it if there is anything. So he snaps her neck."

" _Ow!"_ Juliet exclaimed. "Not that I don't quite see why someone like Hook would _do_ something like that to someone like that…still, his own mother!"

"Then somehow Hook and his crew end up locked away down in the ship's hold, which is something of a labyrinth. They don't have food, so as they're scrambling around in this tight little space, looking for the way out, they have to scrounge for whatever they can find. Guster is there, and he has a T-Bone, but it's a little bit rotten, and Smee has some wine, and Bill Dukes has a couple of small raw steaks and a bag of tiny live oysters. They all sit down and start to eat, but the oysters start jumping and sticking their feet out and just being generally repulsive, and then suddenly they're out on a rock above the sea and the waves are crashing and credits start rolling and I say, _'That's_ where it ends? That sucks!' And then I woke up."

Juliet laughed. "Okay, maybe it wasn't _quite_ as weird as your other dreams - not _quite_ \- but it was still plenty weird. Have you given any consideration to what I said earlier about talking to a professional?"

"You think I need to?" he asked, shyly.

"Oh, maybe not," she said, sounding rather coy. "Maybe what you really need is something better to dream about."

"Like what?" he asked.

"Oh, like maybe...this," she said, and lunged across the table and kissed him full on the mouth.

* * *

 **A/N:** You have the basics of the entire story here, even though you didn't really need them to understand at least the basics of the dream. Still, if you should happen to want to read the story _in_ its entirety, blanks filled in, it is available in two parts here on my page, somewhere down near the bottom. "Condemnation" is the first part; "Redemption" is the second. You don't _really_ have to know anything about Peter Pan to understand the story, because it is entirely AU, though loosely based on the movie starring Jason Isaacs and Jeremy Sumpter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** None.

 **A/N:** This is Juliet's dream because it's a definitely female dream, but also because it was a dream related to me secondhand. Not my own dream. I guess that qualifies this as plagiarism, but the original dreamer is a far cry from a writer and I doubt she'd mind the unauthorized reproduction of her brain-zanies.

* * *

 **The Shoe's On the Other Foot**

Juliet slammed the case file down on the desk in front of him and he jumped.

" _What?"_ he said.

"Now you've got _me_ doing it," she said.

"Doing what?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"Having freaky dreams."

A grin spread slowly across his face. "All right, what was it? Water skiing labradoodles? Donald Trump in drag?"

She shook her head and shook a finger in his face. "I wish. Gaaahhhhaaaahaaahaahahaha. No, last night I dreamed I was in a sorority house, which was on the second floor of a mall, and I was trying on bras. The windows had Venetian blinds on them, but they were wide open, and all of a sudden a twenty-foot tall 'Weird Al' Yankovic look-alike walked by outside and shined a big searchlight in on me while I was trying on those damn bras I couldn't get to fit me."

He burst out laughing. "God, now I'm jealous of Weird Al," he said.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** None.

 **A/N:** This is also Juliet's dream because it couldn't be easily translated to a man. It may well be the weirdest dream yet.

* * *

 **Obama Salama**

They worked separate cases that morning but they met up for lunch. Juliet slammed her hands down on the table as she sat. Her expression said "pissed off" but she was laughing with her eyes.

"All right, what did you dream of?" Lassiter asked, grinning.

"You won't believe it."

"You're saying that to me? The man who dreamt of Hilary Clinton as a hamster?"

"Okay, maybe you will. But still, this dream was free - key. And I totally blame you for this sudden propensity of mine to have freaky-ass dreams."

"Just tell me, O'Hara. I sense it will be good."

"Oh, it was good. And really, really bad. I can't believe a moment of it myself."

"Come on, just tell me."

"All right. First off, just know that I wasn't as I am now. I was a little girl, in high school but no more than eight or nine years old regardless. I had hair down to my ass, as I actually did back then, but instead of wearing it in a ponytail as I habitually did, I wore it down like I tend to do now when I'm not on duty, and it was as wild and fly-away as it is now, not all limp and straight like it was then."

"Okay," Lassiter said. "So what happened to this preadolescent high school you?"

She sighed deeply and dramatically. "President Obama came to the school to talk to us, about what I can't really remember, although I remember it was fairly in-depth. We were in a regular classroom, it was stuffed to the gills with students, and after the presentation was over and everyone went back to class, I walked up to the blackboard and started erasing the words that were written on it. After a few seconds, I realized the President was still there, and was erasing the other end of the board. I put down my eraser and tried to walk away, but the Secret Service agent stopped me, and President Obama offered me a handshake. I shook with him, nervous as hell and thinking the Secret Service agent was bound to shoot me at any moment, and then I got the hell out of there as fast as possible.

"Outside the classroom, this big, tall, kind of chunky dark-haired teacher lady stopped me and said they were going to put my picture up for having met the President and shaken his hand. She said people were going to be kind of angry about that, because they were supposed to hold a vote about who would get that honor. I nod and walk away, towards what I think is my class - German; I took four years of that in High School; ja wohl! - and meet up with a whole gaggle of much bigger, older girls who are just looking death at me and all stand up and come towards me like they're going to beat me up. I feel absolutely no fear, and put my fists up, but I'm stopped from fighting them by the memory that one punch equals instant expulsion. So I let the teacher scare them off instead and I head on my way to my class.

Anyway, I quickly discover that I am utterly lost. Nothing looks like the school I know. In fact, the whole place seems like some kind of House on the Rock fairyland. There are curving wrought-iron staircases leading up to glass-walled turrets, a "proposal room" all decked out in the most romantic style, and some kind of semi-medieval room that I really want to go into but, for some reason, I can't. Even when I find my way into what I think of in my dream as 'school hallways,' they are nothing like I know. The walls are covered in white carpet, doors leading to sorority rooms and electronics labs are tall and narrow (and covered in white carpet), and I can't find my way around at all. Finally I find this teacher, a big, burly red-headed guy with a thin beard, who looked just like that Turk guy, you remember, the one who woke up naked in a field in that identity theft case we had awhile back - the one where we had to go undercover at a speed dating event and you couldn't even pay me a fake compliment? - and I tell him my problem and he says he can show me the way to the German classroom. He heads off and starts dropping little rubber footballs along the path for me to follow, and as I go along I try to pick them up for him, but they keep falling out of my hands. Finally he says to me, 'It's nice of you but don't bother.'

"He leads me to this big room where I discover that we're on all fours on these narrow little railroad tracks, and they're covered here with high heeled shoes with their toes pointing up, stuffed animals, and sunglasses. I sit and ponder this for a long time, and think about how I can get past these obstacles without damaging anything, and finally I realize my best bet is to crawl over the stuffed animals. I do this, and then the tracks - three of them - are clear again, and I see we are WAAAAY off the ground, in a really dark, dismal kind of warehouse structure. I now find myself clinging to this tiny, wooden handcart thing that's just big enough to ride along the rails and crouch on, and I pick a track at random because the teacher has gotten way ahead of me and I haven't seen any footballs. I choose the middle track, praying it's the right one because I have a feeling that the wrong ones just stop in midair. It does seem to be the right track, because I find a couple of footballs on it as I start zipping along it at cheetah speeds.

"But the track still ends in midair, and I scream and look down, and way far down below me is the teacher, looking up at me, and I'm still in midair, and the wheels of the cart are spinning, and I'm not moving at all - literally. I hold perfectly still because I know if I move, shift my weight in any direction, the cart will finally start to drop out of the air, and I'm terrified of the landing. I stay right there, spinning my wheels in midair with my mouth wide open, screaming, but not actually afraid now that I know I won't fall as long as I don't move, for a long time. Long enough to get bored. So I chance a look down at the teacher and say, 'Is there any way to descend that won't kill me?' and he shakes his head and says, 'None that you'll like hearing about,' so I go back to holding real still and screaming.

"And then, President Obama is there, floating in midair right beside me, like Dr. Freakin' Strange in his Cloak of Levitation, only he's just wearing a regular black suit and smiling at me. I ask him how he's doing that and he says, 'The power of _there,'_ like it's some old joke. He reaches out a hand to me, but I'm too afraid to take it."

Lassiter was grinning from ear to ear. "You may have weirder dreams than I do, little girl," he said.

"Oh, it gets weirder," Juliet said, shaking her head. "Much weirder. Obama says he'll help me down. All I have to do is trust him. He takes my hand and pulls me back, on the cart, to the side of the room, still way above the floor, and says, 'Just step back. There's a postal box back here,' and I say, 'Hell yeah, there's a postal box. You're just trying to get me to let myself fall.' And he says, 'Would that be so bad?' And I say, 'To be a splat on the concrete? Yeah, kinda.' And then he says, 'You know, you're the bravest person I know,' and I say, 'How do you figure? I'm scared shitless,' and he says, 'You had the courage to tell me where to stick it. Not many people can do that. I'm proud of you. Now. Can you use that courage, and trust me just a little, and believe that I won't let you fall? I'll catch you, I swear.' So, slowly, I let go of the handlebars and step off the cart, and he catches me by the arms and we float to the ground."

Lassiter was now laughing helplessly. Juliet grinned, despite being a little embarrassed, and continued.

Anyway, he goes back to doing his Presidential thing and I go back to following the redheaded teacher. He leads me out onto this light green industrial-looking catwalk, where the sections of walkway are seesawing up and down and there's a gap in the middle you have to jump. Worse, it's a gap that's bigger than it has to be, because there's a platform in the middle you can't step on because it's open, having been a vacuum once upon a time, and worst of all, there's about a six-inch railing around each section of gap that you have to jump over as well. The teacher makes a run for it and makes it across, then expects me to do it. At first I'm too scared, but then I remember President Obama and get a surge of self-confidence. I take a run for it, hair streaming in the wind, but right before the leap I chicken out and fall backward onto the platform, which is seesawing up and down and slices my hair off when it comes into contact with the next platform over, like a scissors. Then I slide off and into the industrial muck and chemicals below, and as I'm sinking down, my eyes and mouth and nose all covered with this greenish-brown sludge, my thoughts are: 'It's all your fault, Obama.' "

Lassiter was about ready to slide out of his chair and roll around on the floor, he was laughing so hard, and other diners were looking at him strangely. "Oh honey, this is a good one. Keep going," he managed at last.

"Anyway, apparently they pulled me out, because the next thing I know I'm all wet and next-door to naked, wearing only a thin, wet white A-shirt and no panties. One of my friends, a little boy about my age whose name I've forgotten but was something weird like 'Tugboat,' was squatting down somewhere around my feet looking at me, so I got all embarrassed and tried to pull my shirt down over my privates. But he made some sound of surprise and started pulling things out of my vagina - Marvel comics collector cards. 'I wondered where these went,' he said. 'I must've swallowed 'em,' I say, and he says, 'You didn't swallow 'em and poop 'em out your cooch,' to which I don't have an answer.

"Fortunately the dream allowed me to reassume my dignity at that point, dressing me in the jeans and red hoodie I was wearing previously, and dumping me back in the hallway I was in before I got lost. I look out a window and President Obama is there, with his Secret Service agent, and he's kissing the foot of someone's baby, and the dark-haired teacher lady says they're going to use the baby's picture instead of mine, which is a big relief to me, and I start off down the hall, which is still totally unfamiliar to me, but at least I finally know that I'm going in the right direction. And then, I woke up."

Lassiter crossed his arms on the tabletop and put his face down on them, still giggling helplessly. "Dear sweet lady justice," he said, almost hiccupping. "That was wild, O'Hara. Maybe _you_ should look into the idea of professional help."


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** None.

 **A/N:** This has become my dream-journal, something my therapist wants me to do, so when I have a dream I can remember, no matter how brief, I try to turn it into one of these stories. I don't dream often, but they're always freaky. I have recurring dreams, different situations but the same basic premise, and they happen almost constantly, but they bother me a great deal and I can't yet bring myself to put them down in concrete. I don't feel I really need to because I know where they come from, what they mean, and what I need to do about them, even if I don't know how to make them stop.

* * *

 **The Inventress**

"I just had an interesting dream," Juliet said, rolling herself snugly into Carlton's arms in their bed.

"Oh yeah? What was it about?" he asked.

"I dreamed I was a teenaged girl who was an absolutely brilliant inventor. She could invent anything. She lived with her parents in this very strange house that was made of plastic or… I think maybe it was Bakelite. She had a big room with its own bathroom behind a curtain but her parents kept the washer and dryer in there and added a hot tub that very day that made her giggle and ask that they put up a curtain so she wouldn't have to see them making out in it. The room had tracks for curtains everywhere, like it had been a hospital room at some point.

"Anyway, the girl had to go to some sort of party in, I think, Washington D.C., so she invented a machine to sew her a fancy dress and it was absolutely stunning - silvery and glitzy and elegant - and she showed her mother the other dresses this machine had made for her, displayed on a dressmaker's dummy that was alive. When she got through with that she put on these shoes that made her float a little bit - shoes with hamburgers on the soles - and went outside in the snow to play kick the snowball and squash it with her family, still in the fancy dress."

"I think it may be safe to say that someone wants a fancy dress to wear to a party, at the very least," Carlton said, smiling.

Juliet blushed. "Maybe, a little. But I don't know where the hamburger-sole shoes came from."


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** None.

* * *

 **The Wedding Night**

Juliet shot upright in bed. Carlton awoke and rose up beside her.

"Honey, what is it?"

"Oh, bad dream. _Weird_ dream. Not exactly a nightmare, but, I don't want another one like it."

"Tell me about it," he said. She gave him a funny look.

"I don't know if I should. You might take it entirely the wrong way."

"What way is there to take it?"

"Well, it was… kind of a… non-explicit pornographic dream… and not about you. It wasn't a _pleasant_ pornographic dream, though, don't think that."

"Well, now I think I gotta know," he said, with a reassuring smile.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "It was my wedding night," she said. "My groom was… Vlad Tepes."

"Vlad Tepes? Wait… Vlad _the Impaler?_ The inspiration for _Dracula?"_

"Yyyyyep. I don't know why. I haven't thought about Vlad Dracula since I did a report on him back in the tenth grade."

"Uh, this couldn't be a subconscious cry about how you really feel about me, could it?" he asked, hesitantly.

She shook her head vigorously. "No, Carlton, not at all. He didn't look like you, sound like you, or act like you in any way, shape, or form. He looked like the painting of him, and he kind of looked like Jason Isaacs."

"The actor? The one you like, the one that played that blond guy in the Harry Potter movies? With the stupid stick?"

"Yeah. I had kind of a thing for him, but after this… I don't know anymore."

"The dream'll wear off and you'll start drooling over him again."

"I don't drool over him!" she exclaimed, slapping lightly at his arm. "I just like his eyes, and he plays an excellent villain. Villains are always the most exciting characters in a movie. His eyes aren't as nice as yours, anyway. They're more gray, yours are bluer. You're younger and you have more and nicer hair, too."

"Ah, but he has that sexy British accent. Can't compete with that, can I?" he said, sighing theatrically. She slapped at him again.

"Stop it. I like you waaaaay better, and that's all there is to it. Why Dracula looked like him in my dream I don't know, except maybe the fact that I think he really did kind of look like him, with dark eyes. Close enough for Hollywood, at any rate. Anyway, we were escorted to bed, a waterbed, by this extremely perky couple who showed off this wide array of what they claimed were… marital aids. They were mostly seashells, and what their purpose was supposed to be I have no idea. My new husband and I were lying in bed, naked under the covers, and this couple wouldn't leave, and I was beginning to think it was the old tradition of the bride and groom being escorted to bed by the village and then the village staying round to witness the festivities? when finally they left and the, uh… 'fun' began. Fortunately the dream did not force me to witness it, but I knew what was going on, and it was… pretty brutal. I can't remember ever having a dream like that before."

"I can't help but feel this might be because of me, somehow," Carlton said.

"No. No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. Anyway, when it was over I got up and got dressed in my queenly or… well… princessly garb - he never was actually a king, was he? or was he? - and went to walk the battlements to cool off and calm down, but then I knew I had to come back and go back to bed and let him keep doing whatever it was he wanted to do to me, so I headed back into the bedchamber, which was enormous and had a bunch of other beds in it, for some reason, all very far apart. And as I was looking for the right one, I discovered that there were other people in these other beds. People who shouldn't have been there, and I knew Vlad would be pissed.

"So I went to the bed, where I found him asleep next to some woman he had slept with because I wasn't there for him to sleep with. And I touched his shoulder and he woke up, and I told him there were people in the bedroom. He got up, completely naked, and the nearest group of people got up and came over and… ogled him… and the woman said 'Wow,' and he said, 'Yes, this should be seen and remembered,' and then a servant helped him into a dressing gown.

"The woman he had slept with got up. She was dressed, thank heaven, and she stood there, and he pronounced judgment on her - made her his apprentice, of what I don't know, and gave her two of the necklaces I was wearing in punishment to me for leaving him still horny. Compared to the other ways he might have punished me, I thought this was quite nice of him. He then got most of the people to leave with no fuss.

"Then we came to the last person, and there were cabinets near his bed, one of which was supposed to contain money and the other of which contained treasures of some sort. A servant checked them and discovered the treasures untouched but the money missing. The man in the bed, who was the servant in charge of collecting and transferring this money to the places it needed to go, was guilty of embezzlement. Vlad sentenced him to the stake, and he fell down crying, sobbing please, no, it was too much. Vlad didn't listen, and that was the end of that. Then he took my hand and led me back to bed, because apparently he wasn't quite satisfied after all, but fortunately for me that was the end of the dream."

"I still think this has something to do with me," Carlton said quietly.

"No! No, no, no, no, no!" Juliet said, and threw herself at him and proved it in the only way she knew how.


End file.
